Sam Bird set the pace for DS Virgin Racing in a premature first practice session ahead of the inaugural Santiago ePrix.
Bird, who currently lies in second place in the Drivers' Championship, set a best lap time of a 1:19.439, 0.207 seconds ahead of Felix Rosenqvist who was his nearest challenger for Mahindra Racing.
In the third spot, Jean-Eric Vergne continued to show the recent strong form of Techeetah, 0.262 seconds off Bird's pace while he was followed by Jaguar Racing's Mitch Evans who was 0.118 seconds adrift of the Frenchman.
Andre Lotterer completed the top five in the second Techeetah car while early pacesetter Alex Lynn finished the session down in sixth, less than half a second off the pace of his DS Virgin teammate.
After a successful outing at the Marrakesh ePrix last month, Jose Maria Lopez continued to show his talent behind the wheel of one of the all-electric cars, setting the seventh fastest time for the struggling Dragon Racing outfit while his teammate, Jerome D'Ambrosio, ended the session down in 16th fastest with 0.857 seconds separating the pair.
Edoardo Mortara was eighth fastest for Venturi Formula E, leading Oliver Turvey who was ninth fastest for NIO and Nelson Piquet Jr who rounded out the top ten in the second Jaguar machine.
Outside of the top ten, both Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler and Renault e.dams struggled for pace, with reigning champion Lucas di Grassi leading an Audi 11-12 while Sebastien Buemi led Nico Prost in a Renault 13-14 despite picking up suspension damage at the halfway mark in the session.
Practice one in Santiago, Chile, was ended early when Maro Engel brought out a red flag with four minutes to go after hitting the wall for Venturi, meaning that the session was not restarted while many out on track made mistakes due to the poor racing surface of the venue.
